


Gravity Shift

by YogurtTime



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Rena’s Junno vision, Romance, Sex, pov switching, truth being fluffier than fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:35:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12052401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YogurtTime/pseuds/YogurtTime
Summary: 2010 was the year when Koki asked Junno to be his best friend and 2010 was a year when gravity took over.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the 2013 run of fic_the_faith on livejournal.

 

 

_**Part I** : ‘Had a great idea last night that I didn’t like...’_

 

In the Spring of 2010, Koki woke up to his world coming to an end in plasma Hi-Def and surround sound.

Koki wasn’t the sort of person who could switch on his T.V. just to watch the news. He’d never understood how people could devour horrible events all in one sitting; never understood why people _needed_ confirmation that the world was a big hub of self-inflicted pain. Being a misfit portion of the entertainment industry with its own self-indulgent decaying flavour was reminder enough.

Déjà vu, Koki called it. The male news anchor addressed the camera in the same blandly smiling, informative tone from four years ago, pointing at stock photos and smiling at his colleagues because it really wasn’t his problem. This was basic gossip; this was something they could laugh at once the cameras stopped rolling.

 _Akanishi Jin will be departing from KAT-TUN for the second and most likely the last time…_ a laconic voice on the screen remarked as the sofa sank under Koki’s weight. He had his phone in hand and there were several missed calls, but he didn’t think to call the others. It just seemed so unreal. Still part of some ridiculously played-out nightmare.

In the following months, through whatever events had led up to this point, he was still working his ass off like nothing had happened. People around him began to remark how impressed they were with him. He was pretty calm even with all the scenery around him imploding and changing colour. And as he followed his motions set in place months and months ago Koki started to hate how everyone kept bracing themselves for a blow-up when all he was trying to do was move on before anything hurt. It just made him feel like there was something _else_ he should be doing.

Of course he didn’t do that very thing until the worst possible moment. It was just how his universe worked.

Before it happened, though, Koki had gotten to thinking; a lot of awful things that ranged from speculation to cold, hard truth. Where there’s a breakup, everyone wants to know who dumped who. In their case, it just didn’t apply. They didn’t have any control over the decision and of course they agreed it was for the best, but just like there’s always that one mean person out of ten who judges the family of a runaway, Koki could see the speculation and in the end, unless they did something otherwise spectacular, they were the unwanted remains.

Whenever he’d get like that and had begun to look at his options, he’d catch himself staring at his band mates in a quiet panic. The rest of the world was aiming to spin it like these four men and Koki were the only visible ‘remnants’ of some dynamic concept they liked to call KAT-TUN. And in those very silent panicked moments, Koki stared at the other remaining four and was certain that the world had somehow got it all wrong.

Within the space of that one terrible month, Koki watched Kame-chan instantaneously dive head-first into work with a determination only seen in all the best athletes; he saw Yucchi, guarded and reserved as ever, adopt a semi-candid and a very witty, _Avant-garde_ type of charming when he spoke to the higher-ups; he worked connections and offers during meetings not like they were desperate—and oh, they were-- but more like it was simply appropriate to do so. Uepomu went from his default to an almost impudent flourish with his solo concerts, which triggered the artist in him to an almost _real_ state.

The world was so wrong about them and Koki, feeling only an unhappy resolve, had jumped in along with them and he really _tried_ to keep it together.

It was the concert that did him in, however. The final song, bright lights crashing over them and the screams of the fans like a wash of relief. They stood on stage all together and at their full spectacle, in the midst of their song, Koki felt it climb him like a toxic choke.

He hadn’t cried in front of so many people since five years ago and everything was so different from back then. He covered his face as the music bled on and the fans raised their voices; he was hiccupping fresh sobs with each new outbreak of reality. How could anyone who’d felt this at least once not want it? How could anyone look at these five people on stage and think they weren’t worth it; worth the sacrifice and effort it would take to keep them here. And next to all the rejection Koki felt; next to the possibility that _they_ were unwanted, they stood surrounded by thousands of people who still loved them and weren’t afraid to show it. He was shining glorious with four others who’d withstood a true test of time and public disdain. He was swimming in the idea of being this loved even when someone else didn’t want them enough. He was alive, looking at a universe through a periscope lens.

And Koki had never felt so alone in his life.

That’s when he felt it: a hand closing over the back of his, long-fingered and sure. The crowd shouted out its comforts, and the others kept singing, melancholy and glittering-eyed at the spotlight, but Koki looked up at Taguchi standing right beside him with a grasping hold of his hand as if he’d read Koki’s mind, as if he’d been watching all along and had expected this. When Koki glanced up at him, Taguchi smiled, other hand tilting the mic to his lips, kept singing, and his fingers squeezed as though Koki and he had always been friends and he was Koki’s only comfort in the world.

Contextually, it was an unexpected gesture. Taguchi was something like background noise to him and the only time they _really_ talked was during their radio show in all its formulaic tenses. They were never close because Taguchi was not the sort of guy you went to with your problems; plus, Taguchi’s main supply of energy came balls-deep in the phrase, “Cheer up!’. Koki had made it a certifiable art not to mix with Taguchi too much when he’d long ago realised he just couldn’t deal with that much surface-level giddiness.

However, that didn’t stop him from going home with Taguchi that night.

It wasn’t anything like _that_. It was the fact that it was the last day of their early Spring tour and Taguchi had leaned over the back of his chair in the dressing room that night and said, “You should come over.” And Koki, eyes still swollen and still sniffling like he was four, had nodded a shy ‘yes’.

 

 

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

 

 

A six-pack and some other mixes later, Koki was tipsy, exhausted and ready to start crying all over again. Taguchi was still brimming with energy and visibly ecstatic to have Koki in his apartment, being a weirdly accommodating host, letting him use the first controller while he kept refilling his glass. Still, Taguchi’s flat was warm and when Taguchi sat down in the other chair, he fixed a perfectly listening gaze on Koki. His eyes were as bright as ever, the television was flickering to their left but his gaze never strayed; completely rapt. Koki leaned back in Taguchi’s sofa, feeling the leftover salt swallow of crying, and he told Taguchi, of all people, the truth.

“I just hate when people leave,” he’d told him miserably. “Even in a general sense, I hate thinking about what it means when _I_ get lonely for them. Especially when they’re not worth the pain; when they don’t care about you the way you cared about them.”

“I do get that,” Taguchi remarked simply, cheek in his palm, all slurred words and smiling happier than anyone has ever been over a weepy, inebriated house guest. “I’m sure he cared about _us_ , though. Right up to the end; he’s just shy so…”

Koki didn’t give two shits about how Jin viewed them. It was a nonfactor to what he felt now. And truth be told, Koki would have said it aloud regardless of whomever was with him at the time. Incidentally, it was an unnaturally silent Taguchi sitting near him when Koki buried his face in his hands and whispered, “I wish there was a way I _could_ be sure; especially with my friends.”

A silence followed his little veiled prayer as Taguchi got up to the fridge. Koki had just raised his head long enough to toss back the last of his can when Taguchi’s voice came, muffled from inside the fridge, and it said, “You can be sure with me, just so you know.”

Koki had to hold off swallowing when he nearly choked and he looked at Taguchi bent behind the fridge door and genuinely didn’t know what to say. He briefly considered forcing a laugh and was blessedly relieved that he hadn’t the next second when Taguchi lifted his head over the door and blinked at Koki. “Aren’t we friends?”

“I don’t know.” It came out before he could think it through. Taguchi straightened, regarding Koki with a guarded look and Koki added. “Well, not officially. We could be, if you want.”

Junno tossed him another can as he took a seat, leaning over the arm rest close to Koki. “What would ‘officially’ be?” he queried without a blink.

“Um, I guess like best friends. If we hung out like this more often; didn’t just talk about work and just--”

“I’d like that,” he said it quickly like Koki could retract the offer.

It struck Koki—certainly not for the first time—that this guy _really_ liked him despite the fact that he had made it very clear on frequent occasions that there were _many_ things about Taguchi that he wasn’t a fan of. Taguchi’s subtlety was of an entirely different ilk, though, and Koki found himself a little disarmed at the idea that no matter how honest he was with him, Taguchi never really stopped looking like that around Koki. It felt like something really close to the word ‘unconditional’. Koki just couldn’t stop his smile.

“All right,” he said, turning his helpless grin toward his own hands. “You know, being best friends is a whole different thing. Seeing each other at work is something else. We have to meet up and do actual things. Fun things, you know?”

Taguchi curled his fingers in on the sofa’s arm excitably. “Right, right, yeah, OK. I can do that.”

They could do that. Koki wondered what on earth they’d have in common besides video games; he was sure Taguchi didn’t even like the same music as him. “We’ll think of things to do…” he murmured more to himself. “But yeah, let’s try it out.”

Taguchi’s subsequent nod was not far off from an epileptic tremor before he paused, staring too long without blinking “Do we… do we shake hands or hug or…”

Koki, in his effort to control his own embarrassing grin, managed a perfect glare as he held out his fist. “Fist bump,” he said. “Best friends fist bump.”

 

 **_Part II_ ** _: ‘…that I’d finally found you…’_

 

A relationship could be a union of two worlds, Rena always thought.

Her boyfriend of four years, Junno, could have been a good example of this. For starters, Junno wasn’t even her type. Rena was always more into the highly-strung, punk-rock muscly bad boys; the sort of guys who’d write their number on her palm and try to kiss her within an hour of meeting her. She only approached him because any brown-haired, lanky, nondescript yuppie in an off-white polo shirt who was mad enough to sit across from her at her regular dive bar-- where she was always surrounded by her bigger friends and best girlfriends-- and just _stare_ at her over his drink every night for a stretch of several weeks had to be something of a dark horse.

One night, torn between annoyance and intrigue, Rena just sat down beside him. She was an abrupt speaker; most often people took her words the wrong way, but she put it to use there. “I hope you were planning to buy me a drink,” she said to him. “After looking at me for that long, I’m thinking something expensive.”

Just the smile he fixed on her in that moment. His big dark eyes squinted and disappeared into a blinding mix of surprise, awe, and elation; no one had ever looked at her like that before. “You noticed?” he asked and he wasn’t even embarrassed. “Wanna play a game of darts? Loser buys.”

In hindsight, she kind of loved that her first impression of him was a resounding mental, ‘ _Wait, what_?’

He lost, of course. He was what one could call a spectacular loser with his wheedling, bitter laughter and fake-crying. He was drama walking while he kept a steady stream of daiquiris coming with each game he lost. He was the perfect embodiment of the limbo between gritting her teeth-- like _seriously_ one step away from needing a good shake-- and her crippling burst of laughter because he just refused to make sense and that was sort of cool if you liked them tall, dark, and senseless.

It didn’t take long to size him up; work out how he ticked, but even that was a mixed bucket of contradictions. He had the body of an acrobat, drove a crappy hybrid, smelled like oranges and brand name musk, and tasted like stoat and sugary breath mints. He went and shamelessly informed her that he had a weird thing for bad girls, and when he touched her, he went straight for her thighs, all huge smooth hands curling all the way around the top of her knees.

“You’re like jazz,” he whispered over her mouth in the dark as he got his fingers in her hair like he meant for them to really blend. “Jazz and Spring.”

God, he was a special sort of weirdo and there was really no accounting for how hot a guy made her feel regardless of the awkward morning after…

“Can I call you?” he’d whispered through her mail slot seconds after she’d closed her door. She said he could try and he e-mailed her instead. She hadn’t even given him her email! He was so off-colour, different; an insidious taste under her skin like biting into a tart fruit for the first time.

And within a month, Rena was horribly smitten.

When they were first getting to know each other, she was a bit taken aback at how Junno miraculously came to _love_ everything she liked. He always dove headfirst into whatever she was into and he adopted each habit with just enough success to be considered adequate at it. Her Thursdays, once spent alone with guilty-pleasure rom-com, had somehow become a ‘couple thing’ once Junno started inexplicably dropping by with romantic movie recs of his own. The sudden evolution in his wardrobe was both obvious and off-putting and his taste in music was a whole other animal with bands she’d mention only once and realise within the space of a week, he’d have their entire discography. Apparently, it wasn’t even intentional and over time that started coming off as less creepy and much more adorable.

There was a problem with that too, though. Well, not _that_ in particular; it was just that their relationship was more of an assimilation than a union. There was her world of daiquiris, bar games, classic cars, clothes, and magazines and where Junno factored in, absolutely nothing had changed. He wasn’t boring, though; just a colourful, beautiful, smiling blank. Junno had come into her world an empty slate and yes, that freaked her out at first. Her friends kept telling her it was because he was a younger guy and was probably still trying to ‘find himself’, but she wasn’t _that_ much older than him, and the men she’d dated when _she_ was younger had their own hobbies at least.

OK, so there was the dancing, the juggling (he first showed her with four shot glasses and she’d been buzzed enough to think it was the most miraculous thing she’d ever seen), and the endless stream of word-play (hilarious because it was insane and it made her friends irrationally angry how he’d just stand there in the aftermath with that inexplicable junkie smile). If he were any other man, that’d be the side she’d try to dive into, but as her luck turned out, she was in love with a younger guy who was one part of a six-member boy-band under a glamourized fascist agency. This meant that everything about him was actually his _career_ and she couldn’t even be _seen_ going near any of that.

Somehow they made it work, though. He never actually got angry—not in the way anyone she’d ever met would—and his bouts of sulking, as an alternative, were just easier to deal with. He had enough of that weird self-confidence that he never so much as raised a brow about her guy friends and was more than willing to go hang out with them. His regard for her had him treating her like a queen without any of the mind games, and—this, she’d only ever admit to her closest friends—along the lines of physique and general virility, she’d never had the time or the _energy_ to complain.

All this was primarily why she’d never touched on the subject. She figured she could wait it out and bear witness to whoever he decided he wanted to be outside of work. Rena did like that he seemed to want to be her own special pet. She loved that the first time he saw her cry, he burst into tears too without even asking her what was wrong, which of course just had her laughing; how he was one bedroom ceiling mirror away from loopy, how his narcissism was powerful enough to the point where his view of her as his ‘one and only’ (his words; not hers) caught her like it was contagious.

He was so damn easy to fall in love with; the type she could start to love a little bit _too_ much what with that powerful instinct to protect him that kept coming over her where he was concerned. By their second year anniversary, she’d found herself thinking over and over about the fact that she no longer even _knew_ how to leave him alone and that it scared her. When they started taking trips overseas together-- sudden, adrenaline-rush vacations in hot places where he’d brand her with his erratic high on life—it brought her to the point that when they were bombarded by paparazzi at the airport, all she could think to do was shriek at them to “Leave Junnosuke alone!” because for blind seconds, that’s really all that mattered.

Then, when they’d been caught enough times kissing in the backseats of taxis, walking to and from the combini incognito, his hand curled over hers like he was even leading, he went and introduced her to the other members of his band. It was at some New Year’s thing with a whole variety of Johnny’s and very few of them had brought dates and in all honesty, she didn’t remember a lot of their names and she wasn’t sure which ones were actually _in_ KAT-TUN. She was convinced one of the NewS (or was it Kanjani8?) boys kept telling her he was in KAT-TUN just to confuse her on purpose.

Looking back on that night, she remembered Tanaka Koki and his haircut; his chains and the clothes that were clearly meant to make him look two sizes bigger than he actually was. She only noticed him at the time because he was supposedly Junno’s favourite one to pick on. Or something.

Of course it made her curious and while Junno liked to _talk_ about his TV appearances, he never really sat her down to watch them. She resolved to do so and one late midnight, she curled up in her PJ’s and watched a full episode of their TV show, and after sitting bemusedly through thirty minutes, she could only conclude one thing.

“The other members of KAT-TUN…” she later started with him, hesitating because she could never be sure what actually bugged him like that. He’d gifted her with an eager look, though and she pressed on. “They’re not quite your friends, are they?”

Junno looked surprised. “Of course they are. I love them and they love me.”

It was such a stern statement Rena was locked out of the conversation for a moment. That old instinct to protect him swept in and she hugged him instead, pressed her face into his neck when his arms came around her easily, always ready to do the grand gesture; be the demonstrative boyfriend out of all the best songs.

“It’s difficult to understand, I know.” Junno had drawled into her hair like he was comforting _her_. “People just love me so much… it embarrasses them,”

She could have embarrassingly loved him for the tone in his voice alone.

Three years flew by before she knew it and she’d gotten complacent and she wouldn’t have noticed the shift if it didn’t happen the way he made everything happen: loveably obnoxious, smiling, and the sugar virus type of ominous.

If she were expected to recollect the first time she should have noticed, it had to be the night he came to visit after his tour early-summer in 2010…

He never looked in the least bit exhausted when he returned from a tour. He’d always show up at hers the very night he got back to Tokyo, all freshly-showered, weirdly energetic, and holding bags of odd souvenirs she’d never use.

It was his turn to cook and he wore an apron the way people wore novelty hats. “Oh, Koki asked me to be his best friend.” He told her like he meant it to be a passing thought, but from his overall disposition that night, he’d been sitting on that piece of news since he arrived. “I said yes.”

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

Rena knew the more _current_ Tanaka Koki. Sort of. Back in 2009, she’d met him another time at a mutual friend’s party and he’d expressed an ironic gratitude to her for ‘putting up’ with someone like Junno. “Thanks for taking care of our idiot,” were his actual words and Rena knew he was joking at the time. Still, something about it had irked her at the time.

Junno had laughed like it was the best thing he’d ever heard when she told him. “Yeah, he’s like that.” And he’d trailed off with a smile, looking off at a memory she’d never see.

Junno, presently in the kitchen, switched on the radio and bobbed his head enthusiastically with an unblinkingly pleased smile, looking-- as always-- like her favourite comfortable loon. “Haven’t had a best friend in a long time,” he explained before he sent her a quick fretful look. “Ah, except for you of course.”

“Congratulations,” she said tentatively, but Junno gave her a jubilant look that made it a little difficult to remember for a moment.

Junno forgot to turn on the oven when he sat across from her and proceeded to prattle on about his plans with Koki. It wasn’t a subject she wanted to change because he wasn’t even talking about the tour, the fans, his solo, or asking her to come to another concert in the summer tour. Everything was about that guy, Koki, and somehow the way he was gesturing and glowing put her at ease.

Maybe Koki would help Junno find himself.

And so it began. Where conversations they’d have often began with his words, “Koki says” as though he could infuse those two words with the power of encyclopaedias and theories studied by ancient philosophers. All the more off-putting was the fact that the things Koki said, according to Junno, were so funny he could barely finish the statements without having to pause to laugh uproariously.

“And he’s so smart, you know. Like he says things that I really have to think about—though he can get pretty crazy with some of his ideas, like yesterday when he told me he wants to rent a car one day and drive around all the coasts of Japan. I mean, imagine that.”

“Would he really do that?” she’d mumbled, looking up from her phone. It sounded like the premise for a comedy.

Junno shrugged, doing nothing at all but lounging on the sofa behind where she was perched. “That’s the thing; it’s so hard to tell if he’d really do it. I bet a road trip with Koki would be fun, though. Maybe I should ask if he’d go with me.”

She didn’t look down at her phone again. Instead, she twisted around to blink at him. What a puzzle. “You’re actually going?”

Junno came back to her, piercing eyes zeroing in on her. “Only if he goes.”

By the end of summer, it became obvious very quickly that when Junno had told her he hadn’t had a best friend in a long time that he was telling the truth because suddenly Tanaka Koki was this miracle that only happened to the chosen few. And for all intents and purposes, Rena was _still_ happy for him because while she had her own things going on, it was nice to see Junno so incorrigibly smug. When he was smug, something in his confidence got her the better part of flushed.

“Tomorrow’s Thursday,” he began one evening, head on her lap and beaming at her. “Movie night.”

“Yep,” she said, distractedly. “Your place or mine?”

He straightened up abruptly, frenetic energy having him poised against the back of the couch and his height making him lean over her. “I was thinking my place. And I kind of, well, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but Koki wants to cook for me—well, I asked him and he looked like he wanted to—so if it’s all right with you, tomorrow he could come join us and make dinner and watch a movie…”

Rena brightened. She wanted to see it all firsthand of course. “Yes, I’d like that. Does _he_ like romantic comedies?”

Junno touched the hair near her neck, his expression practically rapturous. “He does. I know he does. He’ll tell you he doesn’t, but he _really_ does. I know.”

She’d never ask him if he knew anything so adamantly about her as well. Never.

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

Tanaka Koki had _changed_. Dramatically.

She showed up at Junno’s door and Koki was the one to open it.

It occurred to Rena that this would have been how she’d _expect_ Junno’s best friend to look. He seemed oddly at home in a pair of long shorts and a polo that looked very familiar. He’d let his hair grow, black and curly—no piercings that she could see and he was now easily Junno’s type of pretty without his former accessories detracting from his features. She hadn’t thought it before, but he was a good-looking guy, actually, with a strangely voluptuous, expressive mouth. It was just that she’d seen close-up how Tanaka Koki looked before and the contrast was almost jarring.

“Taguchi’s in the shower; that guy just spilled an entire bag of flour on us. S’why I’m wearing his shirt, but he got it in his hair so…”

On those words, he ambled back to the kitchen and promptly offered her a drink. It was immediately all wrong because she’d never felt like a guest in Junno’s apartment before, but Koki was so demonstrative, so talkative and polite, that she could only sit in the middle of one of the sofas and clutch her purse in one hand and balance her drink in the other.

It wasn’t even awkward, though. Koki was frying something up and kept giving her shy glances. He stated a number of self-deprecating things from behind the stove and was so animated in his stories that she had no choice but to laugh so that when Junno emerged from his room, he was greeted with the image of Koki re-enacting some almost accident he’d had on his bike a week ago.

Junno might as well have entered into a room of applause the way he looked pleased and the atmosphere instantly changed. She didn’t know why, at the time, but the moment Junno walked in the room, just in jeans and a dress shirt he didn’t _need_ to have left open, she glanced at Koki.

Koki’s entire demeanour had changed. Previously animated, polite, smiling Koki went instantly sour and taciturn, turning away from the sight of an embarrassingly smug Junno back to the kitchen as if he hadn’t just been in the middle of a sentence. Rena watched him glare at the pan he was stirring.

“I love that you two are getting along,” Junno simply said, buttoning his shirt and not at all seeming to mind that in their next awkward silence, his ‘best friend’ was currently trying to murder their dinner with a wooden spoon.

Rena was so puzzled by this she couldn’t even manage a smile for him. It was just then that Koki twisted around to say, “How’s your drink, Komine-san? I can refill if you like,” in the sweetest tones and she could be sure his cheeks looked pink.

“Ah, no, I’m all right,” she mumbled.

Junno dropped into the couch beside her and laid his arms over the back. “Can I have one?”

“Get your own!” Koki practically hollered and Junno jumped to his feet, looking almost euphoric as he moved for the kitchen.

It was like that for the rest of the night and all Rena could grasp from it was that Koki was evidently still angry about the flour Junno had supposedly spilled and Junno inexplicably loved every second of Koki’s over the top rage. Weirdness all around.

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

It was _too_ weird. Rena had never seen any two people behave the way they were together. She and Koki got along well enough while Koki seemed to be constantly upset with Junno about something. And then there was Junno beginning to look ever more gleeful the more Koki got worked up as if he were actually _trying_ to get a rise out of him.

And, in Rena’s opinion, that was just no way to treat a person.

“If you’re just doing this to him for kicks, you’d better stop; it isn’t fair,” Rena had blurted out to him one morning the moment he opened his eyes.

Junno instantly knew who she was talking about as he squinted, pulling the blankets over them both. He was a morning person definitely, but it always took a few moments before he remembered how to switch on. “That’s crazy,” he murmured groggily. “I’ve wanted this for years.”

The time was six in the morning and those had been the heaviest words she’d ever heard Junno say in all their four years of dating. The shift was now obvious and Rena still didn’t know its name.

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

It was quickly escalating; she was definitely noticing, but she couldn’t figure out what it meant. Junno was looking at his phone one late night and she watched a flush crawl up his face to his ears. His eyes shut with some embarrassment and he hit the light on his phone, laying it on the night-table face down.

“What’s happened?” Of course she asked.

Junno let out what could only be a titter as he curled over his pillow, lying on his side to look at her. “Was just reading Koki’s manual entry. He’s so weird, isn’t he?”

Rena smiled at that. “What he has could be clinical, I’m sure. You two go hand in hand, though.”

Junno laughed so warmly and for a very long second, she was all there was in the world. He leaned over and dropped a kiss on the corner of her mouth. She leaned into it and experienced a vague thrill when his breath caught and his eyes slid shut. She remembered the wonderful strength in the way he pulled her over to him, sliding her hips over sheets and he kissed her properly, holding her very still.

Sex with him that night was different. Rather than his usual methodical, near specifically attentive way, he seemed to fall into a state of worship; scraping palms up the angles of her back, and murmuring half-words when he pulled her legs around him. Junno was always vocal, but that night he seemed to be trying to keep quiet. He nuzzled against her skin, eyes shut the entire time like he was exploring sensation, tasting new curves and wanting nothing but more. It was like being with someone different for the first time in years and it blew her mind.

He dropped off to sleep hours later, practically sprawled over her back, breathing soft tickling breaths against her spine. She’d been on the surface of sleep when her eyes fell on the mobile, face down the way he left it. It would never occur to her to check his phone. Junno was a flirt, for sure, but he was specifically pedantic about trust and she’d learned that, for some reason, women had a tendency to steer clear of him outside his idol persona. She waited a silent, guilty moment before she reached for it slowly between Junno’s snuffling snores.

Koki’s manual was still open on it. He had a very fanciful way of writing and he intimated straight to his audience. He mentioned Junno, which must have been what made him so pink-cheeked happy despite the fact that it was a bit of a tirade about how Junno kept bugging him.

 _ **Taguchi likes me too much; perhaps I should kiss him to shut him up**_.

The words sat there on the screen like a strange image, and it was alarming how that cut through her middle. She twisted a bit to look at Junno curled around her, still sleeping with a content smile, lips so deeply pink, beautiful and sweet with each breath and she felt a sudden unstoppable swoop of loss.

And then, Tanaka Koki was everywhere. Well, it was more like Junno invited him along to more than half of their hang outs and Koki would show up, completely disgruntled. It was such a sad contrast to the way Junno got when Koki and another one of their band mates asked him out for a survival game a couple weeks ago. He’d tormented her for days before the game with texts or phone calls at three a.m. informing her that he’d dreamt about what the trip would be like _again_.

“Maybe you should let him do his own thing once in a while,” she’d murmured to Junno the day they all went to their usual dive with Koki one step behind them.

Junno had blinked an unfamiliar look at her and for a brief moment she could have been any stranger suggesting this. His mouth twisted into a quick smile before she could even react. “He can’t be alone,” he whispered. “Things are not OK for him right now and I want him to feel sure about me—“ He cut off as Koki caught up to them, reaching up to cuff Junno playfully before trotting for the bar entrance.

Rena found herself looking up for Junno’s expression, but in the parking lot light, his eyes were only shadows as he watched Koki race indoors.

It was at that bar, that very night when, after three rounds, Junno got caught up in what appeared to be a very serious drunken conversation with the bartender, which left Rena sitting alone with Koki in the booth.

“I should go rescue that bartender,” Koki muttered—and there was no other word for it—he did it huffily.

“Tanaka-san, do you have a girlfriend?” she’d asked abruptly just as he was getting up.

He turned round on her in surprise and his smile was bitter, worried lines crossing his expression she’d never expect from a man in his early twenties. “I’m kinda done with women right now,” he informed her delicately, nervously shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’ll just be me and my pets…”

“Oh,” she said and felt horribly rude. She was still fueled by her worries, though and she pressed on. “Well, I’m glad you’re coming to hang out with us. Junno’s really happy and I was worried you’re—well-- not.”

Koki’s round eyes darted off to where Junno was standing. “It’s weird; at first I thought this wouldn’t work, but now…” Rena followed his gaze and Junno appeared to feel their stares and blinked over at her, then at Koki; he mouthed a faint, ‘What?’ from across the bar and Koki said, “Now I don’t even know how to leave him alone.”

Yes, that. That was exactly the problem.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2010 was the year when Koki asked Junno to be his best friend and 2010 was a year when gravity took over.

 

A relationship of four years is naturally expected to go somewhere. Her work in magazines was decreasing and she definitely wanted to try other things. There was just the fact that she was beginning to wonder. It was definitely more than dating an idol; the concept seemed so detached from the nature of their relationship. She wondered if it could really be for that long, whether it meant anything.

“Would you like to take a trip to meet my parents?” she asked him one day when they were driving to Koki’s place to meet his ‘children’.

Junno never took his eyes off the road. “Yeah,” he said. “We can do that.”

Most guys she’d dated she couldn’t take home and she knew her mom would love him. In the middle of that thought, it occurred to her that he’d just said ‘we’ can do that and lately, that ‘we’ had taken on a different context.

“I don’t think Koki-kun would want to take that trip…”

Junno’s smile looked incredulous and he laughed. “No, he wouldn’t,” he said. “He’s better at talking, though; wish he would.”

She sighed. “Look, I get that he’s your best friend, but the way you’re acting like he’s an extension of you—“

“I was _kidding_ ,” he chortled, eyes still on the road. “It’ll be just you and me.”

“OK,” she forced a laugh. “OK, all right.”

They went to meet her parents that Autumn and Junno wore one of Koki’s caps. Her mom did love him and she asked Rena privately, “When do you think he’ll propose?”

Rena had considered the marriage thing of course. It had looked like the inevitable curve on their road together. Last year at least. “I don’t know,” she’d said and honestly, after four years, she should probably know.

“My mom asked me--” she began later; he had her practically in his lap and they were sitting on a curb beside his car, looking out at boats.

“Koki says he’s got a fishing license--” he began at the exact same time.

Rena twisted around, giving him her most patient smile. “My mom asked me,” she persisted. “She asked me where we’re going with this?”

Junno’s eyebrows went up. “Eh?” He watched a motorboat cascade over shallow waves. “What’d you tell her?”

“I said I don’t know.”

She’d turned back to look out at the water and felt his smile form against her cheek. “We’re still young. We’ll work it out.”

A nice diplomatic answer. Neither addressing the question nor ignoring it. “You’re younger.” She’d never suggest it herself; that they at least move in together might have been one of the options, but…

“You know I don’t care about that.”

She watched the clouds break from the early evening sun and shut her eyes. “You should care. You really should, Junno.”

He was so still and so silent behind her, even his arms around her were like stone. “Do you want to get married now?” he blurted out suddenly and she went as still as he was.

She thought about the steady wave of loss she kept feeling around him, how moments like this were so rare now; how her outlook had changed, how he was steadily becoming someone really different in a way that she felt she wasn’t quite seeing. It was like watching someone step behind a screen whenever they’d say words like ‘I love you.’

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“Of course,” he replied readily, tense as stretched elastic. “More than anything.”

She breathed in a lungful of sea air. It was cold and summer was long over. “I don’t want to get married now,” she said. “I don’t think you want to either.”

“Right,” he supplied, like he’d just made a point.

She really disliked the ocean in Autumn. “So what do we do?” she said. She didn’t know the answer because none of the options even looked appealing anymore.

“We…could just be like this, you know. This year has been our best year and…”

He went on, talking about all the things that year that had made him happy. He skipped Koki out of the equation and oh, that list was pathetically short. She remembered when she first met him, how she’d thought of him as a beautiful blank and realised that that wasn’t him anymore. That she’d spent four years waiting for him to fill that slate, waiting for him to find himself and that had been the deepest of problems. All that waiting when it was obvious that what made up Junno was the people he loved, and it was the reason he kept looking at both her and Koki like they were some sort of collection he’d completed; like he _had_ in fact found himself.

So perhaps, as a part of the pieces that made up Junno. She could try to be just that. A piece.

“Yeah, I think we can go on like this,” she’d said and felt better because he clearly felt better. “I think it could be OK.”

Junno was still smiling; she could feel it. “I think so too.”

She broke up with him in December.

It wouldn’t have been about Tanaka Koki if she’d ever brought it up and she never did because he’d told her in no uncertain terms that this was the very thing he wanted and she wasn’t about to set herself on fire for something that had nothing to do with her in the first place.

There was something about being tormented by a conversation they’d never had. She wanted to ask questions she didn’t feel comfortable asking, which led to speculations she knew weren’t fair. And in their final days, she went as blank as he could be because after all the ways she’d imagined he was going to leave her, she discovered that she didn’t want to be with him so she could wait for him to lose interest. And judging by how clueless he seemed to be about this Tanaka Koki thing, it wasn’t like he would even realise when he did.

It even happened over the phone, which was as exasperating as he was. When she called, it was a week after not seeing or hearing from him and that could happen, easily. Sometimes his work took him off on abrupt long trips. It wasn’t anything but the fact that his silence had given her time to think.

“Where are you these days?” she asked cajolingly, wanting to keep it rational. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.

There was music in the background and Junno hummed a pleased sort of laughter. “There you are.” He sounded weirdly sluggish, but not drunk. She could picture him lying upside down on something (a couch) and holding his mobile in loose fingers. “I was thinking about you.”

“Were you?” She clenched the phone and willed her tone to remain regular. “So we need to talk.”

“ _Are you going to play or what, Taguchi?_ Tanaka Koki’s voice; shrill in the background followed by the sound of Junno getting up, leaving the room and shutting a door behind him as the noise went low and muffled.

“Sorry, what was that again?” he said.

“Junno…” She was long over this. She needed to move on before this got ugly, before she couldn’t look at this, at any of the events that led up to this moment and still be herself, still be Rena. A lot of it was circumstantial. It had to be because otherwise she was going to lose it. “This has been hard for me. I really tried—“ She couldn’t start crying. How ridiculous; she couldn’t. Stop. “I really tried to look at this from your side, and when I did, I realised how very little good it would do either of us to keep ignoring what’s wrong.”

He didn’t say anything. Junno always had something to say; even in a moment like this, a meaningless, ‘I see,’ would have been fine. He was silent, but she could hear him breathing.

“I don’t think we can go on like this,” she’d told him. “I’m sorry I made you think we could. I didn’t think it through that time; I don’t want you to think it’s anything you did intentionally.”

“Well…”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me the unintentional thing I did, then.” His tone was sharp and fragile all at once. “You said you didn’t want to marry me now so…”

“ _Don’t_.” She wasn’t breathing, and her eyes felt hot. “Don’t act like that’s the only thing we ever had a problem with. I don’t care about getting married; I don’t care about any of that. It’s us; we began all wrong and I can’t fix it; can’t fix the way I look at you.”

“I don’t understand…don’t you love me?”

So simple. And everything that hurt. She was perfectly damaged by how much she cared about him. “I don’t.” Four years falling in love with the potential in a person wasn’t actually falling in love.

“Oh,” he said and she could picture his face, stark and lovely, big eyes that would still pull her apart if she looked long enough. “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“No, because I didn’t tell you and I’m sorry.”

Rena could hear her own words; her usual halting, uneven tone. She’d never hurt anyone this way before and she was hating every minute of it. Then she considered how much it would’ve hurt him if she’d asked him for what she really wanted and she felt everything go to pieces as the words swam together in her head; disgusting reality. _It’s him or me_

Junno breathed out an awful collapse. “I’m sorry too,” he mumbled.

 

 

 

 

 **_Part III_ ** _: ‘…but you were the most perfect Fall.’_

 

In the Winter of 2010, Junno answered a phone call from his girlfriend and managed to ruin everything good about his life in one perfect sweep.

Rena, soft-spoken and Zen as usual, told him point-blank that she didn’t love him anymore and that something he’d done was the cause…

_“I’m sorry too,” Junno mumbled._

The room was dark except for the yellow light slipping under the bedroom door. He lowered his phone, hearing the moment he was in before he’d answered it. Everything she’d said hadn’t made a lick of sense to him, but her voice breaking off like that, like she’d worked on that speech for hours before she’d picked up the phone. And he’d hung on as tight as he knew how, afraid that-- under her carefully razor-sharp social self-- she was as fragile as she felt in his hands and in the end, he felt left behind because of course she wasn’t.

He exhaled and it came out voiced. He clenched his jaw in order to will the second to pass, but it didn’t. He was still standing in a dark bedroom that wasn’t his and watching the walls like they had the answer to why something so huge could crumble in seconds and why he knew he didn’t have the tools to fix it.

The door opened and Koki was there, standing silhouetted in the door. “Taguchi, what are you…”

Junno stared, frozen in a reality he didn’t want. He could feel his mouth stretching into its usual position, should be smiling because it’d go away; it would. “She doesn’t love me,” he informed Koki and promptly had to drop his phone because he was going to throw it the next second. He _couldn’t_ call her back because she _didn’t love him_ and he couldn’t do anything about it.

Koki was approaching him slowly from what felt somewhere now distant and he grabbed his arm, then his hand. Small fingers closed over the whole of his palm as he tugged him back into the light, murmuring things Junno wasn’t hearing anymore.

He’d sat there for the rest of the night, perched on the edge of the sofa, one hand over his mouth and nose like he could be sick and other hand curled up useless at his side, knuckles just pressed to Koki’s from where he was beside him.

They didn’t say anything and Koki’s music played on. Junno kept his teeth clenched and waited between breaths, the way he would when he had a stomach ache and Koki sat there, watching him with brown, deeply feeling eyes and he thought _Good. Good thing he’s here_ because whatever was lurching around inside him would have dragged him to a very jagged place where anything could crack with the right amount of pressure and Koki had to hold him down.

When the blackness crept back and Junno was in the room and much more present again, he looked at Koki. Koki was asleep beside him, heavy eyelids bruised an almost bronze colour. He always looked smaller in sleep, as his chest rose and fell and Junno had long ago told someone he was sure was his best friend that he liked to watch him sleep because it gave him peace.

That boy had stopped wanting to be around him, but when Junno told Koki this very same thing simply because it was true, Koki had laughed and said, “Good, so I can start charging you for viewing admission.”

It couldn’t be right. He was already starting to feel better.

“I’m gonna go,” he sighed, beginning to get up to reach for his coat.

Koki, eyes still shut, grabbed him again and his hold was like iron, fingertips barely making it around his arm. “As if I’m gonna let you go home looking like that.”

Junno hadn’t the faintest idea how he looked to Koki then, but Koki was all warm with sleep, and somehow the prospect of joining him looked more appealing than the glaring and growing ravine in front of him.

 

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t supposed to go down the way it did. He wasn’t supposed to lose them both at the same time.

Something in his relationship with Rena had been growing under the water surface and it was tied to Koki; he knew it. Maybe it was just that he hadn’t banked on loving being Koki’s best friend this much.

At first it was about proving Koki wrong because he kept prefacing their conversations with phrases like, ‘as soon as you get sick of me’, and ‘while this lasts’. That night long ago when Koki had cried at their concert, he’d acted like a person who’d never had anyone he could genuinely trust before and even Junno knew that couldn’t be right.

So he plunged into being there for him one hundred percent and found it to be the easiest thing he’d ever set out to accomplish. Koki was all sorts of new fun, and he reminded Junno of his favourite characters in most of the comic books he read. It was Koki who made him realise how much he liked that spiked sort of love; he used to think something was wrong with him when he’d feel a perfect little thrill each time Koki would lay eyes on him and the embarrassment in Koki’s overall bearing would lead to a resounding snap.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?!” Koki had demanded of him; he was cruising on a coast, steering wheel loosely under one palm and Junno was in the passenger seat, simply watching him.

“Because I like you, that’s why.”

And Koki’s wide eyes and the flush Junno could even _feel_ coming off him in their small space together. “Don’t fucking say things like that! Jeez, you have a girlfriend, you know!”

And that was so hilarious because obviously he hadn’t meant it like that and Koki could be a shy schoolgirl, if they came in rage-shaped packages.

In jarring contrast, too, were those moments when Koki would seem like someone else and surprise Junno with an abrupt hug. Sometimes he looked lonely and despairing and Junno, the closest, warmest thing would be the thing he’d reach for. Contact like that made Junno hang on tighter and whatever was breakable about Koki was all on the inside. He could crush him until Koki pushed him away with a remembered sharp utterance.

The atmosphere at work with the others was always a brand new thing after he’d spent a weekend with Koki. In their green rooms, Koki had always made it a tactful effort to sit furthest from Junno, but that year, Junno watched as Koki would enter, sit in his usual chair across the room, remember himself and get up and plop down beside Junno with a furious look on his face.

There were so few people on this planet that could fit perfectly right beneath his eye-level. He remembered Koki teasing him once and standing right in front of him, blocking his camera view and he was startled for a second until Koki twisted around and sent him an arch, laughing look.

“I can still see right over your head,” Junno told him and Koki laughed, pushing him.

And after that it just worked. During filming or when they were simply having a group conversation, Koki stood right in front of him like a shield from the aftermath of Junno’s own awkward. There were moments that Junno never told Koki he’d think about: when Koki wasn’t simply standing in front of him, when he’d lean back and rest, shoulder blades pressed to Junno’s chest and that was better. They fit.

And the truth was, Junno didn’t know how bad he’d wanted this, this closeness to Koki until they were like this. He liked that Koki secretly liked the things he did, video games and anime. That when he’d start singing an opening theme and the others gave him those exasperated looks, Koki was sitting beside him and humming along.

“You’re pretty amazing, you know,” Koki had said to him once. “It’s like you can’t even feel that anyone’s judging you.”

He laughed. Koki said the strangest things. “No one’s judging me.”

His favourite Koki expression. Half-smiling and staring at Junno like he’d just found something new he liked. “Wow, you’re hopeless. Well, now I have no choice. Better stick around.”

Junno was enamoured because Koki reminded him of drums, of rock and the crisp dark of Autumn and he wanted him around forever. It was an ineffable thing, looking at your best friend and thinking of fate. How he’d been waiting for something like this since they were fourteen and Koki hadn’t even looked at him twice until now.

When ‘best friend’ didn’t feel like enough, he’d once got his arm around Koki—an old summer day—and told Koki he thought of him as his _aikata_ and that was the closest thing to circumstantial fate.

“I think I was born to meet him,” he told Rena because she was the only one who got that this was important to him, the only one he knew who understood the withdrawal you could experience without someone.

And Rena left him.

He had never had his heart broken before and it felt like nothing was ever going to be normal about him again and Koki, ever drawn to hurt and broken things, was there like he hadn’t been before.

“You’re staying here until you’re all better, got that?” Koki told him staunchly and there was no argument he wanted to make.

So he stayed at Koki’s apartment, drove to work with him and this lasted all of three days until things got weird.

He hadn’t _meant_ to do it before it happened and he was certain it couldn’t have been entirely his fault. Koki’s couch was small and he let Junno sprawl sideways on it while Koki sat on a large bean bag, leaning his back on the couch close to Junno’s head. They were going to play all of his favourite games until they passed out and that was all.

He didn’t remember what Koki said, but he was laughing and Koki twisted around, curling his hand on Junno’s pillow to take it and Junno, gasping, had pretended to fight him. He grabbed Koki’s hand and rested his weight on the pillow stubbornly and Koki had to drop his controller and lean over him properly to take it. Junno wound up pulling him and Koki looked so intensely amused and content that it shifted across Junno’s skin like a balm. It felt like falling; he held Koki so he couldn’t move away and kissed him on the mouth.

Koki had a crooked smile no matter how happy he was and Junno was blindly aware of how it felt even as it faded. It could have been curiosity, but there was a sad sort of want growing in him when Koki melted so still and Junno closed his lips over his again and again, finding warmth at last.

It took a faint moment until a terrible second ticked by and Junno realised Koki still hadn’t moved an inch; he was so determinedly still that he was practically trembling. Junno leaned away and looked at him in surprise because for several ill seconds he’d thought Koki was kissing him back. Koki still had that firm hold on the fabric of the couch, but he was staring at Junno very coldly, mouth turned down in disgust.

“You… are _such_ an asshole,” Koki said, got up, and left the room, slamming the door of the bathroom. Then there was a horrible silence before Junno heard the sound of a lock clicking in place.

Junno went home.

 

 

 

~*~

 

 

 

 

They had filming the very next day and Junno expected a lot of things and a lot of them along the lines of Koki ignoring him. Instead, Koki came into their green room and still dropped into the seat beside him decisively, greeting him like he just hadn’t had enough sleep the night before and that it wasn’t Junno’s fault.

Of course, at the very least, Junno was tactful enough not to bring it up right away.

He knew he hadn’t initially meant to do it, but he was beginning to understand why he did. It was tricky, sorting something like that out, but wanting Koki to that extent hadn’t quite factored into his overall plan.

He got it already. Junno got it entirely that he couldn’t make anyone love him-- Rena being the more immediate example-- but he had at least been sure about Koki, that Koki in some way _had_ to feel something because it had been so long with them.

After work, Koki was just picking up his bag and he looked at a space next to Junno’s ear when he asked, "You coming over?”

Junno blinked at him, frozen in disbelief. "Yeah…" he said. “Yeah, OK.”

Koki nodded, eyes still downcast. “I’ll see you later then.”

This was insane. Was Koki just going to keep talking to him like this? Junno stepped forward, gripping the back of a chair in both hands; just for something to lean on as he said, "Wait, I—let me just say something about last--"

Koki turned mechanically, and looked so exhausted as he cut in. "Shut up. I'm not gonna hang out with you if all it means is listening to you make excuses. Last night you did something dumb; real dumb. Just say you’re not gonna do it again and we’re cool.”

Junno paused. “That’s… “After everything they’d been through. “I’m not going to promise something like that—well, I promise I won’t do it again like _that_ , but…”

Koki only looked distressed. “Stop it! Stop! I’m not mad at you, so you can stop pretending last night even meant anything. It’s worse to think what she thought about you those last days when there was never anything going on and--.”

“What?” Junno mumbled and then after a moment. “ _What_? Koki…”

“I said stop!” Koki hollered and someone was going to come in. Koki still wouldn’t look at him directly, but his tone softened and he spoke gently, “I get that you’re upset with her, but that was no way—“

“Quit talking about her!” In all the time Junno had known Koki, he’d only ever taken on two sides of a spectrum in tone with him. There was his ferocity and then there was that sometimes hopelessly saccharine one, but never, _never_ had he sounded so sickeningly conciliatory. A moment ago, Junno had just been frustrated; now he was furious. “You don’t get anything, Koki.” he said. “And I’m really…“ He breathed deep so his voice wouldn’t rise anymore on its own. “… _tired_ of people telling me how _I_ feel.”

“How on earth are _you_ getting mad right now?” Koki exclaimed incredulously. “What right do you think you have to get mad?”

Junno had never felt so cold with his own rage; he was sure if he let go of the back of the chair, he’d be trembling. “Because you won’t look at me,” he replied acidly and hated that he never had words for what was inside him. “Maybe it’s better that way. I’m going home.”

He picked up his own bag and crossed Koki to get to the door. He expected it, but somehow the feeling of Koki’s fingers closing on his jacket just made him angrier. “Don’t go off playing the martyr,” Koki snapped.

Junno shook him off, feeling like ice. He _was_ shivering. “Leave me alone!” were the simplest words he could conjure up because everything else was dipped in malice, words that could cut where he had seen Koki was healing. Even here, when Junno couldn’t stand the sight of him, everything he did was about Koki and that only made him angrier.

“Taguchi!” Koki called after him just as he slammed the door.

This was only just before Christmas.

It wasn’t at all like Rena breaking up with him. Without her, he stopped functioning but without Koki, he was automatic. The holidays came and went and of course they had to see each other. Koki was careful to stay out of his way and even when it was just them two, they’d follow the steps accordingly. Hollow words mostly and when Koki made a joke or Junno heard himself rise for little seconds out of the mire, it was like that would be how it was from now on and it stung every time. And they were just doing the work because they’d fought too hard to mess it up now.

And too much had already come apart in 2010.

 

 

 

 

 **_Part IV_ ** _: ‘The universe is simply built for two.’_

It must have been weeks later; it didn’t seem like long, so it must have. A little after New Year’s, Komine Rena spotted Tanaka Koki exiting a store, rifling through a handful of receipts, and biting his lip pensively. She didn’t plan to say anything to him-- because, really, what kind of conversation could that be?—but he turned and began walking in her direction before he glanced up.

How did someone like Tanaka Koki manage to look so vulnerable walking around alone? He gave her the brightest smile and then like that, a realisation crossed his features and his smile faded to be replaced by an awkward grimace meant to imitate serenity.  
“Hey,” he said.

She nodded at him. “Hey.”

“I—how are you?”

No. Quite honestly, she never thought she’d be having this sometimes inevitable, uneasy, horrible conversation with her ex-boyfriend’s…

“How’s Junno?” No reason to pretend she didn’t want to know.

The receipts in his hands made a crunching noise when he closed his fists without thinking. He had very small hands, but his knuckles were white. “He’s doing all right, I mean he was upset and then—“He cut off and looked at her helplessly. “Listen, if there’s anything you thought we—“

She held up her hands quickly in her own helpless gesture. “Please, oh my god, don’t. That’s—I’m glad he’s all right. You can—I didn’t…”

A silence fell between them and Rena couldn’t help it. She smiled ruefully, wishing she’d met Tanaka Koki differently because she couldn’t even conjure up anything close to resentment. He let out a sad little laugh and his hands went in his pockets; that expressive mouth turned downward.

“I know it’s not any consolation, but I guess I should tell you… him and I… we’re not speaking.”

She felt her own fingers digging in her palm. They were standing right on a sidewalk in the midst of people weaving around them and it could have all been white noise to the sound of those words strung together. That couldn’t be right and she looked at him, really properly looked at this person who’d seen virtually all sides of Junno and still had the chance to see more.

“When he…” she began hesitantly and pressed on because for all that she protected Junno from her feelings, she owed him at least this much. She took a step forward to make sure Koki would hear every word. “When he was still mine, he looked at you like you’d hung the moon.”

She watched his jaw tighten and his round eyes narrow. He was a lonely person; that much was true and whatever it was that had him acting like he wasn’t already infused in every fibre of Junno’s being, he needed more than just him and his ‘kids’. “But, why,” he breathed and he sounded desperate, looking out at the passing crowd. “Why me?”

Maybe it was meant to fall like this. Maybe it was the flailing distress in his stare, but she got it. It hurt, but she really got it. “Because he found you _first_.”

 

 

 

 

_**Part V** : ‘All of the things we’ve left behind; let’s watch our flashbacks intertwine’_

In 2011, on a cold January day, Tanaka Koki stood outside Junno’s door for a full half hour, walking back and forth, muttering in a variation of aggravated tones.

Nakamaru knew this because he was there.

“Koki, I swear if you don’t knock now, I’ll knock,” Nakamaru informed the ceiling just as Koki made another swivel from the door and faced the street below the veranda, breathing heavily. “No, wait,“ he amended. “If you don’t knock now, I’m leaving. I don’t have any reason to be making calls on Taguchi on a Saturday.”

Koki and he had had a rough time the past year working out some time to hang out again. They used to be close and everything, but the first time Koki called Nakamaru with his problems in six months, it was only to tell him that he was about to go to Taguchi’s place and make a complete fool of himself and ought to be stopped.

After half a year of overhearing Koki mutter distressing things about Taguchi, feeling concerned and asking Koki about it only to have Koki snap at _him_ for supposedly being the one to bring Taguchi up. Or what was it? ‘ _Jerknosuke_ ’? Nakamaru was clearly over this and knew that Koki asking to be stopped only meant he was scared spineless of doing whatever it was on his own.

The Taguchi thing had taken some time for Nakamaru to accept or even get used to; he still didn’t like it for a whole bunch of train wreck reasons, but it was Koki and despite this being so very embarrassing all around and _unethical_ to the extremes, he was always a proud supporter of letting Koki be happy.

“I think we should just go,” Koki said to him and he was starting to look manic.

 _“It’s going to happen whether you like it or not,”_ Kame said to him last November during a particularly moody spell. _“Look at them, my god; you never even see that in movies.”_ To which where Ueda had chimed in with an aggrieved, “ _Excuse me, but why are we_ still _talking about this_?”

Because it was a year-long conversation, that was why.

“Koki, just _knock_ ,” Nakamaru moaned. “Whatever you have to say can’t be any worse than what he’ll probably say in response.”

“OK,” Koki said fretfully. “OK, I’m gonna do it. You’re right…”

Naturally, two voices outside someone’s door going on for about half an hour would inevitably result in that someone opening said door. Koki had raised his hand to knock and the door swung open and Taguchi stood in the entrance, blinking down at them.

Koki looked at Taguchi tentatively; hands deep in his pockets and Taguchi said nothing, gazing at Koki in his own guarded way.

Having been left out of the finer details over what this was about, Nakamaru’s only thought at the time was _Why would someone answer their door without buttoning up their shirt?_

Koki opened his mouth, only just starting to smile and Taguchi immediately reached up to grip the doorjamb, looking a little pale.

“Can we come in?” Nakamaru prompted, not actually wanting to.

It was like they both forgot Nakamaru was even there. Were he a pettier man, he might have left Koki to it, but he drew forward instead as Taguchi opened the door wider and stepped back. As it was, Nakamaru was content to be furniture for the next few minutes until Koki stopped looking like he’d walked off a ledge into quicksand.

As soon as the door was shut behind them, Koki blurted, “I thought you only did it to get back at her. I know you’re not like that and I was stupid to think so.”

Taguchi’s mad, expressive eyes widened and he smiled at long last. “Is that why you called me an asshole?”

Koki’s gaze dropped to the floor and Nakamaru watched Taguchi try to gain it back, ducking his head to catch Koki’s eye again.

“Yeah, sorry,” Koki said. “I didn’t ever think there was any reason for you to—to feel that way. In regards to me, that is.”

A whole exchange in the genkan and Nakamaru so did not have to be here. Taguchi had a look on his face as he stared down at Koki that Nakamaru kind of wished Koki would raise his head and see. If he saw it, this conversation wouldn’t have been necessary.

“I was dead serious,” Taguchi replied in firm tones. “I’m serious now.”

“Good,” Koki said mutely and he finally looked up, and seemed to stop breathing as his whole face flushed to a pleasant rose as he looked down again immediately. “Good,” he repeated breathlessly.

“May I use your washroom, Taguchi?” Nakamaru asked abruptly and to Taguchi’s absent nod, he fled politely to the next room and into the bathroom.

There was a saying Nakamaru had once read somewhere about long trains and how it was stupid to wait for the end of it before jumping on because the front would have reached its destination. He wasn’t sure, but it made him think of those two. He had no clue what they’d been through, not very much curious about it either; he resolved not to get involved past that little moment he just witnessed there.

Nakamaru patted his hands to the towel on the counter and thought his most benevolent thought about Koki: that if Taguchi hurt him, he’d be the first to exact any necessary revenge. It was what best friends did for each other, he was sure.

Nakamaru opened the bathroom door and promptly went blind.

“Leaving now!” he said, eyes shut and feet tripping in his rush for the door.

Neither horrible person in the room seemed to notice. Gravity could be a persuasive thing or whatever it was that had Koki on his back in the couch cushions with a now shirtless Taguchi climbing him.

Whatever it was.


End file.
